Medbury slipped away forward for a turn about the deck. He looked at the lights to see if they were in order.
"They might as well be kept burning," he muttered, "though God knows what good they are."
Back on the quarter-deck, when he returned from his round, he found the others leaning over the rail in silence. It had suddenly grown dark, and a haze had come up, obscuring the stars and the sea. He paused near Hetty, who looked up, smiled, and made room for him.
"We thought we heard the beat of a steamer's paddle just now," she said. "Listen!"
He leaned over the rail beside her, but for a long time heard nothing but the whine of spars, the rattle of the main-sheet blocks as the boom swung them taut, and the jump of the wheel in its becket. At intervals there came the sound of water dripping from the channels or spouting from the scuppers. These sounds seemed to make more acute the silence of the sea, which seemed like a living, threatening presence. At last Medbury stood up.
"Listen!" said Hetty, in a low voice, and again he dropped his elbows to the rail.
Suddenly there came a quick succession of muffled throbs, like the far-off churning sound of a steamer's paddle-wheel; then it ceased as absolutely as if a door had been closed noiselessly upon it.
Fully ten minutes passed before they heard it again.
"It's queer," said Medbury. "There wasn't a sign of a steamer in sight at sunset. She must be far away, and we hear her only when we're both on the top of a swell. Sound carries a long way on a night like this."
"Bring me the glasses, Mr. Medbury," he said.
Medbury brought them, and the captain slowly swept the horizon; then he crossed the deck and walked to the main-rigging. Coming back, he handed the glasses to Medbury.
In five minutes the mate came back, and went up the main-rigging to the crosstrees. When he descended, he came aft.
"It's getting thick," he said; "she ought to blow her whistle."
"Better get your fog-horn forward," said the captain, and took the glasses for another look as Medbury went below. A moment later the mate returned to the deck with the long box of the patent fog-horn, and presently the dreary wail began to sound at intervals from the forecastle-deck. Hetty shivered as she heard it.